July 2012

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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping

The medical industry stands to benefit immensely from cloud-based product lifecycle management (PLM). The mountains of information that medical companies must manage when...

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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Hand-driven press assemblies, which require a specific amount of force applied for a given amount of time, present challenges when attempting to accurately measure or replicate results in production...

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Briefs: Medical

Researchers have created an ultrasensitive biosensor that could open up new opportunities for early detection of cancer and “personalized medicine” tailored to the specific biochemistry...

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Briefs: Medical
Beat-to-Beat Blood Pressure Monitor

This device provides non-invasive beat-to-beat blood pressure measurements and can be worn over the upper arm for prolonged durations. Phase and waveform analyses are performed on filtered proximal and distal photoplethysmographic (PPG) waveforms obtained from the brachial artery. The phase analysis is used...

Features: Medical

With the large number of user interface options available today, it is easy to forget why the membrane switch is an excellent choice for medical instrumentation. The basic...

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Features: Medical

Every medical device company faces the challenge of navigating through the FDA’s mandatory regulations, and companies have different needs that change as they mature. Early-stage medical...

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Features: Medical

Today, powered surgical hand tools are used in almost all surgical specialties: ENT, Orthopedics, Neurology, Eye, and Plastics. Initially pneumatic powered,...

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Features: Medical

Application development for medical devices requires knowledge of material properties to support function, chemical compatibility with sanitizing cleaners and sterilization methods, as...

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Global Innovations: Medical
University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom www.shef.ac.uk

Injuries to the peripheral nervous system (PNS) are extremely common and affect 1 in 1000 individuals every year....

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Mission Accomplished: Manufacturing & Prototyping

An Albuquerque physician teamed with a Sandia National Laboratories engineer to improve the design of doctors' trauma shears so emergency personnel can get to the injuries...

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Mission Accomplished: Medical

Epilepsy affects 50 million people worldwide, but in a third of these cases, medication cannot keep seizures from occurring. One solution is to shoot a short pulse of...

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Products: Materials

Polyzen (Raleigh, NC) has achieved a quality standard threshold that allows for the production of seams that are as strong as the actual film itself, resulting in resilient product performance. The company...

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Products: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Data Logger

Lemos International (Barrington, RI) has introduced the MicroLite II Data Logger with a new Boomerang feature that can automatically send data back to the user via e-mail from anywhere in the world. The Microlite II is a small USB temperature and humidity data logger used in the pharmaceutical and medical industry for the...

Products: Medical

Haydon Kerk Motion Solutions (Waterbury, CT) has released the DCM4826X stepper motor drive module, a bipolar 2 phase chopper drive package rated for a 12-48VDC input voltage and a continuous output current rating...

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Products: Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Iwaki America (Holliston, MA) has expanded its MXM chemical process magnetic drive pump line. The MXM series is a compact chemical process pump line with flows to 165 gpm and heads to 146 ft. Capable of handling...

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Products: Electronics & Computers

Keithley Instruments (Cleveland, OH) has introduced the Model 2657A High Power System SourceMeter® instrument, which offers a highly flexible, four-quadrant voltage and current source/load coupled with precision...

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Products: Medical

Goodfellow Corporation (Oakdale, PA) now offers ceramic and glass crucibles in a wide range of shapes, sizes, and materials for applications where heat and corrosion resistance are essential. Materials include...

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Products: Materials

Machine Solutions (Flagstaff, AZ) has introduced integrated protective film technology for balloon pleating and folding/ wrapping and fluting processes. The FFS975S Drug Eluting Balloon...

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Products: Medical

B. Braun (Bethlehem, PA) provides an extensive selection of valves in standard and custom options. Configurations include needle-free, dual check, aspiration, low pressure, trumpet, normally closed, and inline. Valves can be purchased...

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Products: Manufacturing & Prototyping

The new MED-6219 low-viscosity silicone elastomer from NuSil Technology (Carpinteria, CA) is suitable for any application requiring a flowable yet high-durometer material with a transparent appearance. It is able to...

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Products: Electronics & Computers

Omnetics Connector Corporation (Minneapolis, MN) offers Latching Micro- D™ connectors with a new squeeze-latch system suitable for making quick cable connections to rack and panel equipment. In addition to...

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Products: Medical

Keystone Electronics (Astoria, NY) has broadened its selection of PCB & SMT Mounted Fuse Holders to include a series intended specifically for photovoltaic systems. The new fuse holders are designed to accommodate...

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Products: Medical

ASM Sensors (Elmhurst, IL) has expanded its product line of tape extension position sensors, POSITAPE®, with the introduction of the WB25 series. The measurement ranges are 12m, 15m, 20m, and 25m. The tape is...

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Products: Materials

Parker Hannifin Corporation (Cleveland, OH) offers FEP Heat Shrink for catheter forming, which features a uniform recovery and a maximum constrained elongation up to +5%. This reduced elongation limits the possibility of...

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Products: Medical

Victrex Polymer Solutions (West Conshohocken, PA) offers labeling solutions for critical medical instruments based on APTIV® films made from VICTREX® PEEK polymer. The film labels retain their properties after multiple...

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Products: Electronics & Computers

The Minmax ABF-04 Series from Minmax Technology (Hudson, MA) is designed for direct PCB mounting. The product features EMC compliance to EN55022 Class B emissions and EN61000 immunity standards. This miniature,...

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Products: Sensors/Data Acquisition

MEDER electronic (West Wareham, MA) has released four new reed sensor and magnet design and evaluation kits, which take the guesswork out of the sensor design process. It is suitable for designers who want to start...

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Products: Medical

Intelliconnect USA (Crossville, TN) now offers an extended range of high-reliability Triaxial connectors to include various adaptors and bulkhead mount jacks for several different cable types. Two new families are now...

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Products: Medical

Molex Incorporated (Lisle, IL) has introduced the Mini-Fit® Plus HMC (High Mating Cycle) crimp terminals, suitable for medical equipment manufacturers developing commercially available products such as patient monitors,...

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Products: Sensors/Data Acquisition

Werth (Old Saybrook, CT) offers the IP 40 T Sensor, which provides flexible measurement with image processing on a rotating/tilting head. This feature is also available on large coordinate measuring machines. The compact sensor...

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Products: Medical

Teleflex Medical OEM (Raleigh, NC) has announced an expanded array of sizes, colors, and patterns for the Force Fiber® family of sutures. Force Fiber is a combination of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) yarn...

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INSIDER: Medical
New Technique Sees Deep Into Tissue

A technique developed by engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) enables researchers to focus light efficiently inside biological tissue. While the previous limit for how deep light could be focused was only about one millimeter, the Caltech team is now able to reach 2.5 millimeters. With...

INSIDER: Photonics/Optics
In Laparoscopic Surgery, Two (or More) Views Are Better Than One

Laparoscopic surgery is minimally invasive, but it is also visually constraining. In contrast to open surgery, surgeons who work on different tasks are all limited to the same view. In a small in vitro trial conducted at Brown University, surgeons with their own views performed...

INSIDER: Medical
Robotic Legs May Help Unlock Secrets of Human Gait

Researchers from the University of Arizona have produced a robotic set of legs that is believed to be the first to fully model walking in a biologically accurate manner. The biological accuracy of the robot could someday help researchers understand how to help spinal-cord-injury patients recover...

INSIDER: Medical
Neurostimulation Devices On the Rise

Medical Design Briefs kicked off 2012 with a feature on neuromodulation and its current and future applications, which range from the therapeutic benefits of deep brain stimulation, to artificial pacemakers. Take a look at the full article here, and you'll quickly see why neuromodulation offers exciting...

Videos: Medical
Digital Microfluidic Hub

The Sandia Digital Microfluidic Hub — a droplet-handling router from Sandia National Laboratories — enables the interconnection of diverse processing and analysis modules to automate complex microliter-scale molecular biology sample-preparation protocols.

Videos: Medical
Sharper Ultrasound Images Could Improve Diagnostics

Recent improvements to ultrasound technology by MIT researchers allow for precise measurements and tracking of disease progression. The work was led by Brian W. Anthony, co-director of MIT’s Medical Electronic Device Realization Center (MEDRC).

Videos: Medical
Making the Invisible Visible in Video

New software developed at MIT amplifies variations in successive frames of video that are imperceptible to the naked eye. So, for instance, the software makes it possible to actually "see" someone's pulse, as the skin reddens and pales with the flow of blood, and it can exaggerate tiny motions, making...

INSIDER: Medical
Musical Glove Increases Sense of Touch and Movement

The Beach Boys sang about “Good Vibrations,” but a new wireless, musical glove, created by researchers at Georgia Tech, uses vibrations for the greater good, to help restore sensation and motor skills in people with paralyzing spinal cord injuries that resulted in limited feeling or...

INSIDER: Medical
Smart Suit to Monitor Body Biomechanics

The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, Boston, MA, received a $2.6 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a smart suit that could improve field soldiers’ physical endurance.

INSIDER: Medical
Better Systems Needed for Medical Device Cybersecurity

While medical devices that work with computing systems save countless lives, just how secure and private is the information they provide? An interdisciplinary team of medical researchers and computer scientists from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School and the...

INSIDER: Medical
New Probe to Study Vision Impairment in Astronauts

Researchers at GE Global Research were awarded a three-year grant to develop and test an ultrasound probe and measurement techniques for NASA that could be used in space to monitor how microgravity affects astronauts' vision.

The new probe will be designed to deliver real-time, 3D...

INSIDER: Robotics, Automation & Control
Creating Elastic Conductors Using Silver Nanowires

Scientists at North Carolina State University have developed highly conductive and elastic conductors made from silver nanoscale wires that may be used to develop stretchable electronic devices. Stretchable circuitry has many potential uses in the medical field, such as providing an electronic...

INSIDER: Medical
State-of-the-Art Imaging Technology to Detect Doping at London Olympics

The new Anti-Doping Science Centre in Harlow, UK, considered the most advanced drug testing laboratory in the history of the Olympics, will be conducting tests using equipment like a GE ImageQuant™ LAS4000 biomolecular imager, to detect performance-enhancing drugs during...

News: Medical
Seeking Participants to Help Develop Standards for Medical Device Communications

IEEE has announced four IEEE 11073™ standards-development projects intended to expand support for plug-and-play, interoperable medical-device communications. These standards will help support patients living with chronic diseases like asthma, diabetes, congestive...

INSIDER: Medical
Generating Terahertz Signals for Medical Device Applications

Engineers at Cornell have developed a new method of generating terahertz signals on an inexpensive silicon chip, that may be useful in applications such as medical imaging and wireless data transfer.

Terahertz radiation, the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between...

INSIDER: Medical
New Device Locates Brain Activity with Extreme Accuracy

Researchers at Aalto University in Finland have developed the world’s first device designed to map the human brain combining whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology. MEG measures the electrical function and MRI visualizes the structure of...

News: Medical
European Directive to Impact the Medical Devices Industry

A revision of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE2) Directive was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on July 24. While it is mainly for European waste and recycling industries, some aspects will have consequences for the medical device industry since,...

Ask the Expert

Ralph Bright on the Power of Power Cords
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Understanding power system components and how to connect them correctly is critical to meeting regulatory requirements and designing successful electrical products for worldwide markets. Interpower’s Ralph Bright defines these requirements and explains how to know which cord to select for your application.

Inside Story

Inside Story: Establishing Safe EO Sterilization for Medical Devices
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To find out more about the expertise required to establish a safe and effective EO Sterilization for medical devices, MDB recently spoke with Elizabeth Sydnor, director of microbiology for Eurofins Medical Device Testing (Lancaster, PA).

Videos